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Third Secret Eiphany High Performance Objective |
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But then, I had the most wonderful thought. It occurred to me that it didn't really
matter if we won or lost. What I had a
chance to do, right then, was to truly find out my limits in this sport of
rowing. How much pain could I endure
before I passed out? How far could I
push myself? I had thought in the past
that I had pushed myself to what I formally believed was my limit. But I was finding out that I hadn't. Now, as we entered the last 20 strokes, I
called the stroke rating up. We hit 44
and strained to hold the Germans. They,
of course, must have been certain that we would fold the last 500 meters, as we
had done twice before. When we didn't
they began to come apart just a little. Not much, but enough.
Meanwhile, I was experiencing what it meant to give
everything I truly could. I was, in
effect, living the High Performance Objective.
The world was closing in. Things
were getting more black than sharp. I
was on the point of passing out when we crossed the line. But we did cross the line. The Germans did too. Just about six inches behind. What heart break for them, what joy for
us. But the joy I felt only partly had
to do with winning the world championship.
More than anything, it was the knowledge that I had reached my HPO. I had reached my limit. I knew another aspect of myself, and to me, a
very important aspect. Whereas I had
believed that winning was the objective, I came to realize that winning by
itself was never the objective. It was
always the curiosity to see what I could do.
In a nutshell, that is the high performance objective. It is the goal of the inspirational leader
for both himself and for those he leads.
To test the limits of one's capabilities dismisses the importance of the
strictly goal oriented. What are those
limits? It is not up to others to define
them, it is up to the individual. With
me, it was to see what I could do. With
other personality types, the HPO may be very different. It may involve the quest for ultimate
security, or love, or competence. Either
way, the role of the inspirational leader is to help support and encourage that
definition within each one of us.
So, how does the inspirational leader do that? How does he help maximize each individual's
capability within his team? That is what
this book is about. The secrets we will
talk about in the following chapters will amplify the method and the
process. But the first thing the
inspirational leader does is to make his team aware of what the High
Performance Objective means. He makes
them aware of what it is all about. He
speaks to the heart of what we all really want, deep inside each one of
us. Then, he uses the concept of goals
and objectives to help get us there.
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